Look Out, 'Cause Here It

 There seems to be a lot of concern these days about the looming specter of communism. This is a lot easier to manage than the looming specter of socialism. After all, we have embedded in our fiercely anti-communist society little reminders of things like Social Security. And public schools. And a great many other programs that seem to have been created with the citizens of our nation in mind. Public health care, food relief, and a great many things that have "care" somehow connected to them by implication or in the title. Which is why the conservatives cling to the name "Obamacare" instead of the Affordable Care Act, since it gives them a chance to double down on their hate. 

This is the big threat to our way of life, the MAGAts will tell you: Communists. This brought me back to my seventh grade geography teacher, Mister Clements. He passed out to his class a piece of paper titled "Isms Defined." 

• Fascism: If you have two cows, you keep the cows and give the milk to the government; then the government sells you some milk.
• Nazism: If you have two cows, the government shoots you and keeps the cows.
• Socialism: If you have two cows, you give one to your neighbor.
• Communism: If you have two cows, you give them to the government and the government then gives you some milk.

Back in 1974, this seemed completely adequate to describe conditions on the planet, with the kicker being that Democracy was supposed to allow everyone, including the cows, to live and thrive in peace. Which is essentially what the oligarchy we have now continues to push at us as the narrative we should believe. 

Except that none of us down here seem to own cows, and the corporations who do seem completely invested in the idea that we will pay just about anything for a quart of milk. Or a steak. 

Meanwhile, these folks calling them democratic socialists have started to show up as a stark contrast to the establishment. Most notable in this wave is the new Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani. In the first eight months in office, he has secured state funding and rollout plans for universal child care for two-year-olds, won thirty-four million dollars in tenant settlements and repairs from landlords, securing nine  million dollars in worker and small business restitution, and filled one hundred thousand potholes across the five boroughs. 

No word on what's happening to New York City's cows. 

Our Best Shot

The beat goes on. 

An In 'n' Out got shot up in Idaho. In what has become standard lone gunman procedure, the lone gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Three innocent victims were shot and killed by this nitwit with an assault rifle. 

Evil nitwit. 

Evil. 

Twenty-three year old Ashley Garibay was killed while assisting in the training of new crew members at the burger joint that now serves as a crime scene. She used to live in Stockton, California. Now she doesn't live. 

Christopher Claunch, whose life ended at fifty-nine, had recently gotten sober. Two years ago, he started his life over and was hired by the rehab center he had attended as a patient. Christopher wanted to help others start their lives over. 

Dale Schultz was also passing through Idaho when his life was cut short by an evil nitwit. An artist and pickleball player, Dale was a husband, father and grandfather. His wife, Reinette, was wounded in the melee and remains in the hospital. Her life is forever changed as well. 

Six others were injured. Their lives as well as those throughout the community of Twin Falls, Idaho. 

And beyond. 

Grand Haven, Michigan.

Denmark, Tennessee. 

East Saint Louis, Illinois.

Rittman, Ohio.

Livonia, Michigan.

Cheektowaga, New York. 

Muscatine, Iowa. 

That's a list of communities in which a mass shooting has occurred, with the number of casualties set as three or more victims. Since June 1, 2026. Two months and change here in the United States. Lives cut short and lives changed. Forever. 

And that's a 

Exit Strategy: Here's The Door

 Her boss says that vandals were responsible. 

She has come to the conclusion that it was a "botched installation." As for those vandals,  "it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt." The fact that former Olympian David Hearn's case was dropped after being indicted by a grand jury back in July is not a surprise. The fact that this voice of reason is coming from longtime MAGA sycophant and former Faux News celebutroid, Jeanine Pirro, is the shocking part. 

Ms. Pirro was, after all, one of the loudest voices amplifying her channel's insistence that the 2020 election was stolen. None of that blathering required any specific evidence beyond the parroting of talking points delivered by a convicted felon. The manipulation of facts in this case eventually resulted in her old boss, Rupert Murdoch, being saddled with a seven hundred eighty-seven million dollar judgement to be paid to Dominion Voting Systems. Back then, even the folks at Faux News referred to Jeanine as a "reckless maniac." Who better, then, to appoint to the office of U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia?

This is an administration that already has its share of reckless maniacs: Pistol Pete Hegseth, Stephen Naziferatu Miller, and the previously mentioned convicted felon in the big office. What makes this rather high-profile embarrassment different than, say, starting a war in the Middle East without provocation or exit strategy, is the fact that Jeanine Pirro shares something in common with Second Trumpreich members Tulsi Gabbard, Krist Noem, Pam Bondi and Lori Chavez-DeRemer: a Y chromosome. 

The reality that has risen up to shove these women toward the door does not seem to affect the boys in the club, and certainly the qualifications Ms. Pirro brought to her appointment were always a little suspect, but since when has being qualified have anything to do with getting a job with this administration? Her current boss insists that she "choked" and "folded like an umbrella," while promises of  a quick end to the war in Iran sit out there as shining examples of incompetence from the testosterone side of the room. 

Firing a woman in an administration that insists that DEI should be abolished, doesn't come as any sort of shock, but it does make you wonder who will take the blame once all the women have been let go. 

Beautiful Noise

 I spent last weekend by the sea. 

Which is a little ridiculous since I live in a city by the bay, which is just a hop skip and a San Francisco from the sea. 

I just do not make my way over there very often. 

This past weekend, my wife and I slept with the patio door to our hotel room open pretty much day and night to hear the sound of waves crashing against the shore. All day. All night. In the morning, I awoke to the sight of pelicans gliding over the rocks, looking for their breakfast. In the evening, we watched the sun drop into the ocean, and waited for the lines of orange, yellow and purple to fade into the darkness. 

I suppose I can explain this fascination by explaining that I grew up in the extraordinarily landlocked land of the Continental Divide. Before my clan settled in Colorado, they were ensconced for generations in Kansas. A sea view was nothing if not a curiosity. The closest I came to cavorting an natural bodies of water outside of the local swimming pool was the beaver dams in the creek near our family's cabin before the beavers packed up and left because of all those kids spoiling their nice work. 

The Pacific Ocean is a different thing entirely. It gave me a sense of the infinite. Staring off into the distance, I had to imagine that there were people and places over the edge somewhere, but for my purposes, this was forever. This did not stop the waves from attempting to make their presence known at the other edge of their reach. Tides came in. Tides went out. I stared at them in awe and appreciation. As we made our way down the shore, my wife and I saw the signs reminding us of riptides and currents that would sweep us away if we were foolish enough to go wading or, heaven forbid,  attempt to a swim in all that churning. 

So we walked until we found a beach where the waves raced up to our feet, and we felt the chill of water that nobody bothered to heat. We were mindful of all the ways that this mass of salty water could make our lives difficult or sad.

But mostly we listened to the sound. 

Not the traffic on the highway four blocks from our home back in Oakland. Not the jets overheard. Just the endless churning, the slow attempt at changing the coast line. Someday, the hotel in which we took all this in would drop off the cliff and into the sea. But not last weekend. We listened to the sound and it lulled us to sleep. 

I dreamed of the sea. 

Parting With Part D

 The Second Trumpreich wants to end Medicare Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration at the end of 2026. This temporary program was termed a "bailout" by the weasels in the ruins of the White House, with the assurance that, "Premiums will go up by less than ten dollars for most ⁠Medicare recipients, with many even seeing lower premiums." 

How about that? Just before I get to dip my toe into all that Medicare goodness. All those phone calls in the middle of the day, asking what plans I have: A, B, C and D? I have cruised along for most of my adult life with pretty solid health care coverage, thanks to my employers. Now as I begin to ponder life out from under that protective wing, I have to consider what life will be like on a "fixed income."

Meanwhile, the orange sack of protoplasm skips off to Walter Reed for a cognitive test and proof of his continued existence every time he breaks wind. Paid for by you and me. The guy who has grown his personal fortune by more than two billion dollars in the past year and a half pays nothing out of pocket. 

Nothing. 

Zero.

Zilch. 

Nada. 

Eighty years old and billions in the bank, how is this thick slab of meat ever going to understand that a change of "just ten dollars a month" could mean a meal or two? Not that this slob ever seems to miss a meal or the nap that seems to follow shortly thereafter. 

Of course, two billion dollars raised from a sketchy bit of crypto business would go a long way toward solving this shortfall, but I guess that's just not the way these things work. 

Is it? 

Fare And Square

 Recently as I have traversed the highways and byways of Oakland, I have noticed that city buses flash, in addition to their destination, a message on their front reader boards. They all read, "Fare Required." 

My initial reaction was a grumbly, "Well, duh." 

Then I started to think about it. Not too terribly long ago, when this city and the rest of the world struggled with the realities of a global pandemic, people hopping on busses without paying their three dollars seemed like an unnecessary bit of contact for a ride across town. As long as everyone remembered to sit more than six feet apart, there shouldn't be any trouble. Bus drivers were essential workers and helped ferry other essential workers to their essential work. The notion being that once COVID was over, we would settle up. 

A quick check with Alameda County Transit tells me that these headsigns are there to promote folks helping to stave off the budget deficit that currently exists within the company. We are reminded that further losses could result in reduction of services. Further reduction of services. That previously stated price point of three dollars per ride comes as a result of people sneaking on the bus for free. 

Not really. Like many government agencies, the way that money is spent by AC Transit on things that may or may not result in a more efficient or, heaven forbid, cost effective bus ride. For example, the media campaign currently underway to remind citizens that you are required to pay your fare as you get on the bus. 

Of course you do know that paying fares are not the sole funding source for city bus lines. Which is why just up the road from Oakland in Petaluma, California they have a fare-free bus system. Consider for a moment that those buses are running along their predetermined route on a predetermined schedule at times when there is no one aside from the driver on board. Should the bus driver just pull over until someone pops up with a couple of bucks to get it back on the road? 

Well, for the time being, Oakland is raising its fares and reminding us all that it is required. Meanwhile there are other large cities across the globe, including the entire country of Luxembourg that has done away with bus fare. Entirely. 

I suppose buses in Luxembourg can use those signs at the front to remind people to floss. 

Not Yet

 The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of other things. Of shoes and splits and ten K times, of cabbages and kings. For the purposes of this discussion, the Walrus will not be Paul. The walrus will be me. 

Or I will be the walrus. Which is I find a little odd, since this was the way a grade school classmate described me when she was accusing me of ruining our class picture. Connected to this mild derision was the feeling I have endured for most of my life: being the round kid. The one who got picked last. The one at the back of the pack. 

Struggling. 

When my father invited me to join him running the Bolder Boulder race with him back in 1982, it seemed like a lark, of sorts. That's when I took up the sport, and I have been running ever since. 

Except now it's not really "running." To "run," one must have an aerial phase, or a moment when both feet are off the ground. There was a time when this was something I accomplished with relative ease. It provided me a means to the end of not being quite so round, and though I had already passed the phase of life in which teams were being picked on a regular basis, I flattered myself that I would no longer be the last one waiting to be selected. 

These days, I still head out every day with the intent of covering two to five miles, depending on how much locomotion I have experienced or will experience throughout the day. In my mind, I am still churning out the miles. Every so often a neighbor or friend will encounter me along my selected route, and lately they ask the same question: "Out for a walk?"

And I know they aren't far wrong. There was a time when I was committed to a mile in under ten minutes. Now I creep along somewhere in the fifteen minute area. Chugging along. I don't stop, unless someone needs to ask me directions. Then it's back to plodding. 

Ultimately it's about the cardiovascular, which I have been assured by medical professionals is just fine thank you. This does not keep me from noticing when someone else breezes by me as I am making my way toward my destination. In my head, I tend to do a quick assessment: how old do you suppose that guy is? how many miles has she run already? how did that seventy year old guy just pass me by walking when we were both going downhill? 

I take comfort in knowing that it's not a race. As long as I lace up my sneakers each day and head out to perambulate in some fashion or another, there is no finish line. Not yet. Not for me. 

Gone But Forgotten

 Ron Howard has taken a lot of abuse over the course of his career for what happened to his brother. Not his real brother, Clint, who has received ample support from the roles big brother Ron has been able to send his way over the years. Seventeen of them at last count. Instead of real life, I prefer to turn our focus to life on the little screen: Whatever happened to Richie Cunningham's older brother Chuck on Happy Days? Somewhere along the early episodes of the second season of that very popular series, Chuck just ceased to be. The Chuck Cunningham Syndrome may not get the attention that Richie and the gang brought Jumping The Shark, but it is a very real thing. 

Don't believe me? How about if I were to ask you about Carol Geller? You know, Ross Geller's wife. On Friends. Now for the bonus round: How did the show's writers and producers wind up her story? What about their son, Ben? They eventually disappeared into TV ether somewhere around the eighth season. Rachel and Joey and Monica and Chandler and Phoebe just went on without any real notice or care. Besides, by this time Ross had been married a bunch of times and became a father all over again with Rachel. What's an ex-wife and and her wife going to do to compete with all that? And young Ben? He would be thirty-one years old by now. 

What do you suppose he got into in all those intervening years? I get it that the struggles of a young man growing up in Manhattan being raised by two mothers could never compete with the seemingly endless hijinks and hilarity brought to us by the gang of Friends, but the powers that be did see fit to bring Gunther on for the final episode. 

It's about closure, right?

So I think there's a play or a Netflix series that could be made out of all those discarded characters from various TV shows a la Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Chuck, Ben, Carol and Mandy from the West Wing could all hang out somewhere in a hazy ill-determined reality in which their characters are waiting for a call to return to work. Back to the life they had been living until some executive decided they weren't "gelling" with the rest of the cast. 

I blame Fonzie. 

Passing Through

 Many years ago

I considered myself a poet

Because of all the thoughts

That could not be contained

In a sentence or paragraph

I once wrote a poem entitled

You Can Come And Go In My Life

I did this for two main reasons

To express how deep I was

And how much I was willing to grow

As it turns out all those years ago

I was not kidding around

You have come and gone in my life

And the good news here is that

Each time you have gone

You found your way back

So here we are decades later

Having created a center

Around which we can orbit

Navigating our way through

Space and Time and Always

With a sense of place

A place we call home

Gravity Isn't Just A Good Idea, It's The Law

 Forty years give or take a month ago, I experienced what has become over time a defining moment for me as a human being. 

I jumped out of a swing. 

Many of you have heard this story before. It is significant in the annals of "Why Doesn't Dave Drink?" Because I did. 

A lot. 

And on that one particular July night in the year of our lord 1986, I polluted my brain chemistry enough that the relatively simple act of jumping out of a swing, which I had been doing since I was a small child in a variety of settings, caused me to question not just my place in the universe but also my participation in the prevailing culture. 

Whew. 

That was the first week, anyway. It would still be another few years of bacchanalia for yours truly as the laws of physics seemed to need my attention as did the status quo. Jumping out of that swing meant that I would spend another semester in college to complete the fringes of what would become my Bachelor of Arts degree in Creative Writing. It would still be those few more years figuring out that knee surgery was probably the least intrusive way that I could have received the message: Slow down. 

I wasn't listening then. 

I'm listening now. Each time I have to manage my hop down from a set of stairs or the dull ache that comes when the weather changes I think back to that night and wonder why I needed to live so close to the edge for so long. Nothing that I couldn't bounce back from. Not back in the day. The payback, as it turns out, came much later. 

George Bernard Shaw once suggested that youth was wasted on the young. I'm guessing there was a swingset somewhere in George's past. 

Strays

 The bluest skies I've ever seen are in Seattle. 

Just not today. 

Or for the foreseeable future. 

Last Sunday night, while the community gathered around the iconic Space Needle in the Emerald City, shots rang out. The Bite of Seattle festival ended abruptly as two young men fired guns, nominally at each other, while thousands of attendees looked on in horror. 

As quickly as this tragedy began, it was over. Bodies lay on the ground as the crowd fled the scene. Three people ranging in age from nineteen to fifty-six years old were dead. Four more, including a toddler, were injured. Police on the scene took one of the shooters into custody while another fled. Authorities provides some good news: none of the officers on at the site fired their weapons. Who knows how many more injuries and fatalities might have resulted in more shots being fired?

Because this is the bottom line: You have to have a little something wrong in your head to imagine that you might show up at a large community gathering and "settle things" with a gun. Why would anyone choose to carry a loaded gun into a throng of people who came together to enjoy the flavors of their city? It is the kind of thing that harkens back to our wild west heritage, when gunslingers would roll into town in time for the big square dance, looking for the guy who done them wrong. 

To kill them. 

In the stories we tell and make into movies, the gunslingers are generally really good shots, and they tend to shoot up the scenery rather than innocent bystanders when they miss. The fact that both of the assailants in Seattle managed to shoot everyone but each other speaks volumes about just how ridiculous this scenario turns out in real life. Revenge is not exacted out of the death of innocent victims. 

The Bite of Seattle Festival may go on next year. With increased security and measures to keep this kind of tragedy from occurring again. But it's already too late. Like the Garlic Festival in Gilroy. Or the Pride Festival in Berlin. Or any of the hundreds of other senseless killings that take place every day. 

Whether its the guns or the people that are doing the killing, one thing remains true: If there were no guns, three people would still be alive in Seattle. 

As The World Burns

 For some time, Google has been placing a proud bit of brag at the bottom of their search page proclaiming how long they have been carbon neutral. If you look for it now, it's not there. It was removed because of  "the rapid expansion of power-hungry artificial intelligence caused Google's overall carbon emissions to surge, making it unfeasible to claim operational neutrality without making misleading claims."

Want to know how I found that out? I looked it up on Google. 

Meta, also known as The Facebook, recently kicked aside their clean energy pledge as they surged forward in their efforts to build gas-powered data centers. The agreement, known as RE100, is "a global initiative bringing together the world’s most influential businesses committed to using 100% renewable electricity in their operations." This initiative proudly names more than four hundred companies that have signed on to be a part of this program, including Apple, Microsoft, and the aforementioned Google. Facebook used to be part of that list, but not if it means they would have to give up building giant, smelly data mines. 

So, as it turns out, data seems to have overtaken climate as a concern. The ability to turn your family photos into cheap cartoon renderings of themselves is not more important than our ability to live and breathe on the earth. 

This past week I struggled with my own version of this type of schadenfreude as I read of the struggles of our first paper trillionaire. All of a sudden it seems as though he can't sell an electric dumpster fire of a truck to save his empire. Additionally, the flock of greedheads who gathered to snap up stock in his spaceship program have also given up interest. This pains me because there was a time when I would have been actively rooting for anyone who said they were going to get us all to drive electric cars and fly to outer space. Now I am happy to see him his empire disappear. 

Here I sit, waiting for the billionaire who will come along and save us all. 

No Laughing Matter

 Dying is easy. Comedy is hard. 

Depending on where you look, this quote is attributed to either Edmund Kean in 1823 or Edmund Gwenn in 1959. The one hundred thirty-six years that separate them suggests two things: First of all, British actors seem to always have just the right thing to say, and that after more than a century this sentiment rings true. 

Also true is the way that death and pain seem to run throughout our experience with comedy. Knee slapping and gut busting are just two of the ways that funny things might attack us. A comedian who is having a very successful show might describe it later by saying, "I killed tonight." Contrastingly, someone who is having a less-than-triumphant experience might say, "I died up there tonight." Or perhaps you might say they "bombed." 

This last one is intriguing to me given the convicted felon's recent appearance at the rescheduled White House Correspondents Dinner. You may remember back in April when an attempt at an assassination attempt spoiled what was supposed to his first appearance at the annual event. You might expect that with a few extra months of prep time that maybe the former game show host would be able to work up some solid material. Maybe he might take a chance at having a little fun at his own expense?

Not to worry. The man who has been impeached twice as many times as he has attended the White House Correspondents Dinner spent most of an hour blathering on as he tends to do, poking fun at others and detailing all of the perceived injustices that have been cast upon him. He even tossed out some jabs at his own cabinet: ""I hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire very delicious beef tenderloin, very special beef, and I want you all to know that Bobby Kennedy is right here, personally ran over the cow in his car." Which would have been funnier if he hadn't really made a habit of scraping dead things off the road for his study and amusement. 

Another feature of the yearly fete is the presentation of awards to reporters who have covered the White House over the previous year. The adjudicated rapist continued his running "gag" about the recipient of  the Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure, Kaitlin Collins. "I said Kaitlan, do you ever smile?" Trump said. "Smile. You have a nice position. You are at CNN Fake News. You should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan, just smile."

Crickets chirping. 

An hour of this. 

When it was all over, the Orange Worst summed up his experience. "They said, 'Would you do it next year? I said I will be back next year. If you get really, really nasty, maybe not. But we are going to be back next year."

Might I suggest taking the easy way out. 

Sum Zero

War, we have asked here before, what is it good for?

Well, if you happen to be in the business of selling arms and munitions and missile defense systems, then the answer would be "our bottom line." These would be canonically known as "war profiteers." These are the folks whose business is injure, maim and kill other human beings, preferably in large numbers so as to further the spread of an ideal. Currently that ideal comes under the heading of nuclear non-proliferation, but is often short-handed to "Democracy." 

Profits. 

Oops. How did that get in there? 

The War Pigs have recently been selling us this idea that the soldiers who have been killed in and around Iran were making a "sacrifice." Chief among these aggro voices is the Chief War Pig, Pistol Pete Hegseth who used the opportunity to memorialize those who died by saying, "Godspeed, heroes. Their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve." Feel free at this moment to insert your own joke about the phrase, "stiffen our resolve."

Additionally, we were told by the convicted felon who never bothered to serve because of his made-up bone spurs, “They said, and all of them said very strongly, ‘We can’t let, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They won’t have a nuclear weapon.’” Yes, Dear Leader, I am certain that is exactly what they all said. In unison. As they consecrated the oath of obedience. 

You may not have heard about the three billion dollar federal and Pentagon investments made to 1789 Capital, a venture company run by the son of the convicted felon. This is separate from the two billion dollars daddy has raked in since he returned to squatting in the ruins of the White House. The families of the fallen soldiers will not see any part of that. They will, most likely, be stuck arguing with the folks at the Veterans Administration about the compensation they are due for their deceased sons and daughters. The two thousand dollars they get for burial "benefits." 

That's what war is good for.

Absolutely nothin'. 

Say it again.  

Is That Third D For Disposable?

 You may not remember the 3D movie craze. For a while there, you couldn't stumble into a theater without having to put on a pair of "special glasses" that would allow you to see the evening's entertainment without getting a headache. This, in turn, caused its own headache. Did you plunk down the extra five bucks for a chance to see Leonardo DiCaprio's Great Gatsby in 3D? Tell the truth, did you keep your "special glasses" afterward? Not out of any particular sentimental need but rather the thought that if you paid an extra five bucks those cheap black frames were going home with you. 

Then there was The Last Airbender, an M Knight Shamalamadingdong movie so bad that an extra dimension couldn't save it. This one was scheduled to be the first in a trilogy of Airbender films, but only succeeded in sending mister Shamalamadingdong to movie jail for a good long time and to give my wife and I a new euphemism for flatulence. For the purpose of transparency, I did not watch this movie any any dimension. It was a bar that I set for myself and my family for safety's sake. 

So why did Hollywood insist for about three years that all their major motion pictures needed to have this hokey bit of cheese stapled to it? Perhaps in an attempt to lure audiences back into theaters, something the powers that be did way back in the 1950s when people began to realize that they could stay at home and watch bad movies like Bwana Devil, but the only way they could have the true Bwana Devil experience was to head out to the mall, except there were no malls, and wear an even cheaper version of those cheap glasses that ushers were forced to hand out and collect after each showing. Perhaps you know someone who kept theirs seventy-some years ago?

If you do, they or their progeny might be the ones standing outside the IMAX theater in your area, waiting for their chance to have far too much visual information thrust at them for the three hours it takes to watch Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. There are twenty-five theaters in the United States equipped to show Mister Nolan's movie "properly." I consider myself a film buff, but not enough to make this kind of distinction. I appreciate the vision, I just don't need the extra twenty-five feet of screen to make the movie work for me. To be clear, I quite liked The Odyssey, perhaps buoyed by all the naysayers and sneering from people who haven't seen a frame of it in any format. 

But I find myself currently living in a home where my TV screen is as large as some of the ones found in cineplexes in malls, that exist now, and I don't have the same trepidation I may have once experienced when trying to decide whether or not to go out and see a movie on the somewhat bigger screen. Far away from my couch. For fifteen dollars a ticket. Until that first feature presented in Feel-Around. 

Come Here Watson, I Need You

 That sound you just heard was the ticking of the clock. My last summer vacation is coming to an end. The ramp up to the new school year has begun in little ways, such as the reorganization of the web page. Old faces will be replaced by new or returning faces. I also waded through the annual flurry of online trainings for pesticide safety, workplace harassment, and mandated reporting. I completed each one of these exercises and was rewarded with an online certificate to prove that I am ready and prepared to be an employee of the Oakland Unified School District. 

This means that I will be on the front lines to try and enforce the district's new edict that there will be not student use of cell phones during the school day. They did not come up with this all by themselves. The powers that be downtown were complying with the new state mandate that insists that students in public schools do not use their cellular devices from "bell to bell." Not in class. Not in the halls. Not at lunch. Meanwhile, these expensive gizmos must be kept in secure backpacks, lockers, or pouches. 

Teachers, parents and administrators are immune. 

Have I recently related just how sensitive fourth graders are to hypocrisy? 

Maybe now would be a good time to suggest that instead of training me on the proper use of cleaning supplies and pesticides, the district might have put together a course on how to put ketchup back into a bottle. 

For the past twenty years, I have attempted to stem the tide of cell phone use on our campus, wondering all along why eight year olds would need to have immediate access to any and all communications from other eight year olds and Al Gore's Internet. I have had to stare down a great many parents who figured they were buying these devices for their children "to keep them safe." Never mind that they are never more than ten feet from a land line and/or an adult who can contact the proper authorities in the event of an emergency. 

Like when Destry forgets his lunch and needs to order up some Door Dash. Or when there's a fight in the girls' bathroom and somebody needs to capture it for posterity on Instagram. 

I understand that I just used the words "posterity" and "Instagram" in the same sentence, and this makes me once again full of dread for the upcoming debates. Please understand that I expect that the majority of our students and caregivers will absorb this change without much fuss. This just leaves, as is the case most often, plenty of room for those fussbudgets to fill the void. 

Have I mentioned recently that I am planning this will be my last year in the classroom? 

Just Listen

There was not a lot of rock and roll to listen to on the radio when I was a mere slip of a lad.  I have very vivid memories of calling the request line at KIMN to beg them, at my older brother's insistence, to play "Yellow Submarine" one more time. KIMN was 950 on your AM dial, because what else was there? If you lived in the Denver Metro Area in the sixties, and I did, if you wanted to hear pop music, you listened to KIMN. 

Back then, the only people listening to FM radio were beatniks and hooligans of some sort. It wasn't until the mid 1970s that real rock and roll came to airwaves that I could access. There was a lot of fuzz out there on the dial, but if you twisted it all the way to the right, you would run into KBPI, and then KAZY, 105.9 and 106.7 respectively. 

If you were the safe, commercial type, you could feel comfortable listening to KBPI, who claimed to "rock the Rockies." You would get a steady diet of Bob Seger, REO Speedwagon and the occasional throwback to the Beatles and Stones. KAZY didn't have a lot of use for TV ads. They were out there on the edge of the dial, playing Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Rush. For my money, KAZY rocked a little harder than their neighbor. I liked to imagine the DJs at KBPI were probably tossing back a few beers while they were playing music for the masses. The jocks at KAZY were probably toking up during those Album Side Weekends.

No matter, for my purposes when one went to commercial, I would flip on over to the other until my needs for background music for my teenage ambitions were no longer being met. And every so often, when I was feeling the need for something more melodic or heaven help me romantic, I might spin all the way down to 103.5 for a little bit of the softer sounds of Q103. This is also where I might on occasion find Doctor Demento's show on Sunday nights, only to return to my home base of KAZY to start my week. 

And somewhere in there around the turn of the decade, my music tastes changed, or rather they expanded. I was listening to DEVO and Elvis Costello and Jimmy Buffett and Queen and all sorts of things in between. There was no format that fit my palate, so I began programming my own playlists with the aid of cassette tapes. I used this machinery to inculcate my friends and even my mother, imagining that I was providing a service that FM and AM could not. My car radio was supplanted by my cassette player. 

Somewhere in there, I got old. I started listening to a station out of Boulder, 97.3 KBCO. Their free-form programming eventually became packaged and sold across the country as "World Class Rock." When I landed in Oakland, I was surprised to discover that just across the Bay a station called KFOG had bought that package and was spreading it across Northern California. A hop skip and a jump up the dial from them was the "Modern Rock" of Live 105, KITS. Now I had my comfort music like Barenaked Ladies on one channel and scarier stuff like Jane's Addiction on the other. 

Eventually, I stopped listening to the radio. Because it was predictable. Because of commercials. Because I didn't know what I wanted anymore. 

Now, every so often, I find myself seeking out a station that I can stand for that trip across town. The one that won't make me sad. There are a lot of those. 

What We Hold Dear

 The focus this summer has been unburdening. Thirty-plus years of living in the same spot has allowed us to acquire and maintain an extraordinary amount of stuff. We were able to offload a great deal of our more useful appearing material that had become detritus without actually breaking down. It just sat in boxes and plastic tubs, on shelves and in drawers, in the garage and in the basement. 

The actual debris was simple enough. We are fortunate to live in an area that excels in reusing and recycling. We loaded up the back of the car and took our mess to someone who knew exactly what to do with it. With a good conscience, we left it with the experts. Creating empty spaces only encouraged us to make more. The garage in particular became a favorite destination for those asking the musical question, "Why are we holding on to this?" There were some faint responses along the lines of, "Well I was going to..." but that was not enough to slow the gale force of our cleaning storm. 

Then, at last, there was calm. I became aware of just how full our shelves and cupboards continue to be. In particular, I was stuck staring at the two pharmacy cabinets that stand on either side of our living room TV. The drawers of those cabinets are stuffed full of my CD collection. 

You remember CDs, right? Just after LPs and cassettes, slightly before MP3s? 

I love music. I always have, ever since my older brother handed me his used 45 of Elvis singing "In The Ghetto." 45s were little records with one song on either side. Elvis was a really cool guy until he suddenly wasn't. 

After Elvis, I kept collecting music. First on vinyl, then a brief flirtation with 8 tracks, and a lengthy love affair with cassettes created from those albums I kept filed carefully in my room. Then in crates that I hauled from my parents' house, to college, to a variety of apartments, then across country to my new home in California. 

It was long about this time that the standard began to shift from those bulky records to the compact disc. This also coincided with my getting sober, and suddenly I found that I had plenty of extra cash to spend at expanding my music collection. At one point, it became necessary to jettison all those plastic jewel cases to conserve space, and all those discs were slipped carefully along with their covers and liner notes into clear sleeves. 

Alphabetically, of course. 

Then music began to stream into my house, and all those relics called "physical media" became relics. Ironically, this changeover occurred right about the time that we acquired our first car with a CD player. 

We sold or gave away a ton of stuff in the past three weeks. But those twin towers of CD music remain, partly out of stubbornness, and partly out of a tribute to the purchasing power of sobriety. 

And somewhere in there is a disc with Elvis singing "In The Ghetto." 

In Defense

 I try not to fall for them, but certain bits of clickbait hanging out there on Al Gore's Internet are just too juicy for me to avoid. The example I can point to today is the story I was initially going to scroll past, but instead I ended up giving up a few moments of my valuable time I spend every day attempting to read only the harshest of realities on this article: "The 'World's Worst Tourist Trap' Is A Wildly Popular California Destination Full Of Shops And Attractions."

I have a similar affliction when it comes to seeing the word "Colorado" in a headline, but I confess that "news" regarding my adopted home here in Golden State will cause me to stop and find out the truth. The truth that can only be found in the overripe density of what passes for "news." I want to believe that I am saving you time here by encapsulating the article that I read, but I know that I am only furthering the problem created by my short attention span theater. The subject of this bit of investigative journalism was Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. 

You've never been? That's okay because according to the report, some thirty-three thousand people make the trek across the bay or the country or the globe to visit this tribute to San Francisco's fishing industry every day. These are not Disneyland type numbers, but given the rather confined space and the oddly limited theme for the shops and opportunities to itstare at sea lions. Overpriced T-shirts can be found at virtually every other door and you could be confused by all the choices that can be found for the "original" sourdough bread bowl of clam chowder. 

I have a confession in two parts: First, I will often suggest this as a destination for folks who come to visit us here by the Bay. Secondly, I avoid the place like a plague during my daily business by that previously mentioned Bay. 

This is not due to any particular aversion on my part to overpriced seafood, and it most certainly is not because of any personal disdain I have for "tourist traps." As a matter of fact, I was a little let down once I had clicked on the article and found that they were talking about Fisherman's Wharf and not The Mystery Spot. If one were to judge purely by the number of ubiquitous bumper stickers promoting the only true gravitational anomaly found in the Redwoods of Santa Cruz that sells bumper stickers, you might believe that everyone within the state of California has made the pilgrimage already. 

Or maybe they just have better promotion than Confusion Hill, located some two hundred fifty miles up the coast from The Mystery Spot. Or the Oregon Vortex found still further north, its Mystery House should not be confused with the Trees of Mystery located on that same highway, just a little further south. 

How do I know about all these places? Because my wife and I made special note on a trip north a few years back to stop at any and all so-called tourist traps primarily because we were adults who no longer had to listen to our parents complain about their existence. We could stop and admire all of the overpriced T-shirts and shot glasses while experiencing all of nature's wonders. And as for all those Mystery Spot bumper stickers? I've heard tell that employees of that destination used to go out into the parking lot there and affix them to cars of visitors who were otherwise occupied on the tour of gravitational anomalies. 

Nobody at Fisherman's Wharf is doing that.

Suspect

 A gunshot is heard. Then, "Halt or I'll shoot!"

This grim little bit of Americana first found its way to me back in the 1980s from the mouth of Robin Williams. At that time, it was a pithy observation of imporoper police procedure. It was a bit of a throwaway since Officer Involved Shooting had yet to become the acronym in current use, OIS. 

Last week there were three separate incidents involving ICE goons shooting unarmed citizens. Two of these were murders of individuals not under warrant or investigation. They just happened to make the ill-advised reaction of running for their lives. Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo were not the subjects of any ongoing immigration investigation. They were the recipients of gunfire for the crime of identity. They were identified as targets by poorly ttrained, trigger happy monsters.

So maybe you're thinking that these ICE monsters were attempting to maintain security on our Southern border. Mister Salgado Araujo was killed in Houston, six hundred seventy miled from the border. I don't suppose I need to explain how ridiculous the distance that same border is from Maine, where Mister Duran Guerrero was killed. 

Then there was the little matter of the protester in Colorado who was shot in the foot by an off-duty ICE monster who was attempting to "de-escalate" a situation. By shooting the protester in the foot. Emma Landis was wounded after a verbal confrontation outside a detention center in Aurora. The name of the "officer" was not released because he was arrested and booked on suspicion of attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault and other charges by local police. Local police who did not shoot at their suspect or arrest him without probable cause. We don't get to know the off duty ICE monster's name because he is part of an ongoing investigation. 

We do, however, get to know the name of the goon who killed Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero: David Brouillette. Mister Brouillette, it turns out, has a long history of violent behavior including threatening and assaulting the women in his life. According to one of his ex-wives, he once threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child. The happy news in this case is that Mister Brouillette did not have a gun at that time. 

I can understand if you read all this and wonder how I can make snap judgements about a person who I have never met. 

Just like these ICE monsters do every day. 

Evidence

 In a speech carried by several media outlets including (checks notes) The Home Shopping Network, a convicted felon who incited insurrection five and a half years ago insisted that we should all live in fear of an election process that is being run by China. 

Bad news there, chum. If it were being run by China, it would be oppressive but it would be efficient. 

Some of you may have lost track of just how ridiculous things have become. This guy, who got to live in the White House a second time and then proceeded to tear it up, wants us all to know that the election was stolen. Not the one that put him in a position to destroy and defame our national monuments and trust, but the one that was held in 2020. You know, the one that the pillow guy went bankrupt trying to prove that extraterrestrials came down from the stars and put us all in a trance that allowed that guy (checks notes) Joseph Robinette Biden to break up the monopoly the Orange Worst had on the office. Or maybe it was the voting machines that were manipulated by the electric car guy whose rockets keep blowing up and whose trucks can't go through a car wash. 

It was more than just a touch embarrassing to hear the convicted felon remind us that even though we somehow managed to find our way out of the nightmare that was the First Trumpreich that the election where we were cheated of the "correct" outcome was the one that stuck a slumlord and adjudicated rapist back into the Oval Office. The guy who has lost a lot more lawsuits than he has elections would like us to believe that the system that put him back in office is broken. Former Vice President (checks notes) Kamala Harris who (checks notes again) has a history of winning lawsuits, chose not to contest the outcome of the 2024 election, even though the results have been proven to be nothing short of catastrophic to our country and its standing in the world. 

A cursory look at the "evidence" that suggests that the only way this twice-impeached former game show host could keep himself out of jail was to get himself elected again and begin using the powers that a conveniently sympathetic Supreme Court allowed him to get to cover up his serial misdeeds. The two broadcast networks who are not fully insinuated within the feedback loop instituted by the ministry of disinformation, ABC and NBC, chose not to use up their valuable time with this summer rerun. NBC chose to continue airing its documentary series titled, The Americas. ABC filled their time with a game show called Press Your Luck. 

I leave that last bit as a bit of irony that could not, unlike the tales of fraud spun by the convicted felon, be made up. 

Puzzled

 What are words for? This is the musical question that was asked by Missing Persons in a previous century. 

This is a question I find myself returning to frequently as I wander through this tired existence, but I would like to reflect briefly on my own experience: I feel that words are pieces of a puzzle. 

And now, as I am prone to do so very often, I digress. One of my daily rituals is to sit in front of my computer and push myself through the five daily challenges presented by Microsoft's Casual Games version of solitaire. Each of these challenges comes from a different variety of the game. Klondike, Spider, Free Cell, Pyramid and Tri Peaks. Depending on the day, one of these variations is labeled "hard" or "expert." These are the ones that capture my attention first, but I will plod through all five games each day in the effort to gain a month's rating of perfect. This requires that all five challenges be completed each day for the entire month. This is yet another example of my obsessive compulsive nature, and it is also a series of tests of my brain function. These are mildly difficult puzzles that all have a solution, I just need to place the virtual cards in their proper order and I am free to go about the rest of my day. 

A little over a month ago, I happened upon a Free Cell game that announced itself as "Expert." I have been hammering away at this arrangement of fifty-two cards in order to solve the problem they present to my sense of order. To no avail. So each morning I have returned to the game, finish off the day's challenges and then return to that one game that has me stuck. 

I could just let it go. That would be rational. No one would know. Except you now. 

And this is what keeps bringing me back to these words. Arranging them in a particular order in hopes of solving the puzzle that is communication. Each morning I sit down with the intent of sharing thoughts and ideas in the hopes of creating more understanding. Each morning I push away from the keyboard secure in the feeling that I have expressed myself and brought more meaning into this confused world. 

Except when I don't. A missing word or misspelling can cause all that effort to tumble into jumbled code that cannot be deciphered. Sometimes I even make the mistake of sharing ideas that only I find compelling. All those words stacked up just to confuse and confound my readers. 

Sorry for that. But I suppose that is what tomorrow is for: One more puzzle. 

Gender Affirming Care

 Hey folks, just a reminder that these United States are currently at war with Iran. 

To that end, the Secretary of War, "Pistol" Pete Hegseth has decreed that all service members over the age of thirty will be screened for testosterone deficiency. "As we know, the modern battlefield is brutal and unrelenting. It requires and demands maximum psychological and mental readiness, and by addressing these health markers early, we're keeping you on the leading edge of lethality, and giving you the same level of support that you give this nation – the absolute best."

It's probably just me, but I'm thinking that keeping a group of human beings "on the leading edge of lethality" is pretty much what got us into this fracas in the first place. The eighty year old convicted felon lives on a lot of edges, dementia for one, but his bloodlust is not something that gets the attention it truly deserves. As for the rest of our enlisted "Warfighters" (Pistol Pete's term), if you fall below that killing level of testosterone, you are eligible for hormone replacement therapy to get us back to berserker levels. 

My guess is that the adjudicated rapist and former game show host would like his soldiers to be every bit as bloodthirsty as his secret police of ICE goons. We have become familiar with the arrest quota to which these goblins are charged, but l suspect there is probably a body count goal hidden just out of public view. 

Except we can see it. We have a much better window on the killing fields here in America than we do in Iran. After the initial casualties were announced, including the one hundred sixty-eight school girls were murdered at their school in Minab and the first wave of US military casualties, there hasn't been a lot to report in terms of human loss. 

All the more reason, it would seem, to get those soldiers in the field all juiced up for the purpose of taking lives. Maybe now would be a good time to bring up the other edicts made regarding our armed forces by the Second Trumpreich: No "Beardos," which includes no further exemptions for religious reasons or for medical conditions that make shaving difficult or painful. Interesting, since facial hair is one of the most significant signs of "proper" testosterone balance. And as far as hormone replacement therapy goes, the Orange Worst has declared that trans soldiers are no longer allowed in his army. Which seems to necessarily include those transitioning to male in hopes of living life on the leading edge of lethality. 

So I'll just toss this out there: A study published in the National Library of Medicine found that testosterone levels of your average rapist or child molester fell within the "normal limits." High levels of testosterone were found in inmates who were jailed for homicide. 

No mention of facial hair for any of those. 

Shazbot!

 What fresh outrage will the news bring me today?

How about the headline that threatens to blow the lid off "Why ABC Canceled Mork & Mindy After Just Four Seasons?"

If you have no memory of the spinoff series created by the appearance of the late Robin Williams on an episode of Happy Days, I wonder if you would call the era in which we are currently living as the Golden Age" of television. This might be especially true if you were to know that it was Happy Days, which ran for eleven seasons and was the progenitor of the phrase "Jumped The Shark." That particular episode was aired in the beginning of Happy Day's fifth season, making it all the more curious how that show hung on for another six years, in spite of having The Fonz literally jump a shark on water skis. 

To be clear, the shark was not on water skis. The Fonz was. 

But I digress. 

Mork, who had travelled to Earth previously and landed in Milwaukee where he battled tohis same "Fonz" character to a standstill, returned it our planet in what was then present day Boulder, Colorado. 

Yes, dear reader, you read that right: Boulder, Colorado. My home town. Each episode of Mork and Mindy began with a shot of Boulder Canyon and the University of Colorado, with Robin Williams cavorting with Pam Dawber in the city where I lived. What followed those credits was an explosion of comedic genius limited only by the format in which it was bound: prime time commercial sitcom. 

And here, I believe, I have answered the question posed by the headline. The rapid fire wit that was on display each Thursday night could not be contained in that half hour between commercials for Bufferin and Sanyo electronics. It was even more difficult when network executroids decided to shuffle the show around, moving it to Sunday nights. Is it any wonder that Robin Williams felt compelled to flee to Hollywood not long after those Milwaukee brewery gals Laverne and Shirley took their show there in an effort to shore up lagging ratings. Laverne and Shirley managed to run for eight seasons. Twice as many as Mork got. 

In the end, I was left with my memories and my rainbow suspenders. Yes, I really had rainbow suspenders. I watched as Mister Williams went on to bigger and better things, but I still missed those anarchic Thursday half hours where he stretched the bounds of TV comedy, and frightened network censors and executroids. 

I miss him today. 

Yard Sold

 Someone once said that "parting is such sweet sorrow," but I'm guessing he wasn't talking about having a Yard Sale. 

My family had put off having this suburban ritual for quite a while and when it came time to drag everything that we had carefully selected to be done with, we filled several tables and spread what would be our former belongings out for all to see. 

After more than fifty years of hanging on to Spider Man comics, I chose to make these available to anyone who found their way through our front gate. Initial perusals of this collection by early arrivals found one gentlemen select twenty-five of what he considered the best and the brightest. For him. This made only the tiniest dent. This is when my son, who was there to watch his childhood treasures find new homes and to assist his parents in that task, hopped up and began taking a few quick photos of what was left of the comic display. I had just begun to dread the piecemeal dissemination of my youth to those who might continue this pick and sneer process. That is when my son asked if I would take one hundred fifty dollars for the lot of them. It seems that he has sent along those digital photos he was taking to a friend of his who he knew collected such things, and without pawing through individual issues, he was going to pay us for whatever was left. 

I let them go. We put them in my son's car as a wave of relief swept over me. A couple hours later, a gentlemen strolled into the yard, He asked if we had any comics left for sale. My son, still fresh off his nominal sales triumph told him no, they were already gone. This brought on a series of offers that eventually stopped at three hundred seventy-five dollars. To my considerable relief, my son did not waver. He had made his deal and he wasn't going back. When the gentlemen finally shrugged and went on his way, we both breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't about the money as much as it was about finding a home for the treasures I had hauled around with me for half a century. 

Contrasting mightily to this exchange was the fellow who initially wandered past our front gate, but was lured in by the curious display of what was once our lives. We kept a banter up as he wandered through the tables, finally stopping at a set of plastic drawers. "There's a clown suit in there," I suggested. our j

"Really?" he asked as he pulled out one of the drawers, revealing the purple polka dot clown suit I knew was there. He held it up to admire its gaudy glory. "My son's going to clown camp next week."

"Really?" I returned. "How about a dollar for the clown suit?"

He faltered for a moment. "I don't have any money on me. I just stopped by to look," and he trailed off.

"I'll tell you what," I offered, "How about you just take the clown suit?"

His face lit up. "Really?"

"Really." 

He left with effusive thanks and we once again felt the joy of releasing our past into the wild again. It wasn't about the money. It was about spreading the joy. 

What Did He Say?

 "If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it."

There are a lot of epitaphs that might be suitable for Lindsey Graham's memorial.

Of course there are other moments, like the speech Senator Graham made after his 2026 primary win: “I want to start with a bunch of thank yous. I want to thank the big guy, God. Trump comes later. Mr. President, you're not far behind God, but we’re gonna start with him.”

The fact that there are ten years between these two quotes may tell us a lot about what happened in that decade. Remember that it was ten years ago that a Jesse Dalrymple Vance once wrote, “I go back and forth between thinking Trump might be a cynical a**hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he might be America’s Hitler.”

Things change. The passing of Lindsey Graham leaves convicted felon who started and has maintained an illegal war to distract and cover up his ties to the world's most notorious underage sex trafficker has lost what became one of his most sycophantic supporters. Like this gem from just a few months ago: "Donald Trump is resetting the world in a way nobody could've dreamed of a year ago, he is the greatest commander in chief of all time, our military is the best of all time, Iran is going down, and Cuba is next,"

Lindsey Graham was first elected to the United States Senate from South Carolina back in 2003. That was back when he was propping up another regime changer with another plan to "fix things." On the occasion of his passing, it might be fitting to suggest that he "stomped on the Terra," but not exactly the way he may have intended. 

Aloha, Lindsey Graham. The ultimate "team player." 

Who Watches The Watchmen?

 From the get-go, let me say that I have a certain amount of respect ingrained in me for all law enforcement, having watched my older brother serve and protect the county in which we grew up for some thirty-five years. That being said, I also live in a world that finds law enforcement regularly in the news not for its competence, but for callous disregard for the communities they are supposed to protect and serve. The challenges of maintaining law and order in a city such as Los Angeles highlight this struggle. 

Recently, LAPD responded to a wellness call in Canoga Park where neighbors had expressed concern about the shouting heard coming from a nearby apartment. More than fourteen of them showed up to respond to what turned out to be a woman celebrating the New York Knicks winning the NBA championship. Somewhere in all the excitement, an officer shot and killed her family dog, who was wearing a Knicks jersey. The body cam footage was released by LAPD and it's difficult to come away feeling as though the officer, whose name has yet to be released, was protecting or serving. 

I will chalk this up to a difficult situation being compounded by bad training and poor judgement, but it will not bring Jameson, the family dog, back. Furthermore, it would be ridiculous to isolate this incident as illustrative of the conduct of all of the nearly nine thousand members of the Los Angeles Police Department. The nominal good news here is that an investigation is ongoing based on the footage mandated by the use of body cams by all uniformed officers. 

Which is why I find it so interesting that just recently the LAPD chose to end its contract with Flock Security cameras, a company that specializes in recording license plate information from vehicles across the vast maze of streets and highways in the city. The footage from these cameras is audited and kept for seven to thirty days before it is deleted. Recent concerns about how this footage is being disseminated, particularly in immigration cases by agencies outside of the city governance. In yet another twist to this tale, the Los Angeles Police Department does not own these cameras. They are owned by homeowners associations and other groups, and there remains some question about whether they will continue to watch the streets of LA once the contract expires. Could the be used by ICE goons to track citizens? Or perhaps used to monitor police presence and conduct throughout the city?

Or maybe we should all start serving and protecting each other. 

Had It

 It would be a whole lot easier to take if ICE goon's mission did not include killing people they were supposed to deport. 

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was murdered by the Department of Homeland Security this past Tuesday morning. The "agents" who killed Lorenzo did not have their body cams on, but there was plenty of documentation in the form of witnesses and their cell phones in addition to security cams located throughout the area. 

The white van that Mister Araujo was driving was chased, pulled over and the goons chose to shoot and kill him because he ran away. In the most morbid Keystone Cops tradition, it turns out that Lorenzo was not the suspect they were looking for. He just happened to be driving a white van that looked similar to the one that these poorly trained imbeciles were supposed to be trailing. 

Who are these trigger-happy idiots who seem bent on enforcing their vision of an immigration policy? The idiots in charge were quick to point out that Lorenzo was in our country illegally, but I cannot find a section of any statute that suggests that being in the country illegally is grounds for execution. The story we are being fed by DHS is that Lorenzo rammed the officers' vehicle and they fired on him "in self defense." If this refrain sounds familiar, you might be remembering when Renee Good was accused of trying to run down on the streets of Minneapolis. As was the case back in January, all available footage suggests otherwise. The goons chose to use deadly force rather than deescalate the situation. 

This is not what they are trained to do. I am using the term "trained" here with a great deal of latitude. They are carrying out orders from a xenophobic racists who are attempting to blame our nation's problems on immigrants who came here just a little after they did. Their murdering rampage has totalled, by government accounts, "at least ten people." This does not include the number of those who were detained and died "in custody." 

This isn't an immigration policy. It's genocide. 

Resigned To It

 Graham Platner has suspended his race for the Senate seat in Maine. 

Eric Swalwell will not be governor of California anytime soon. 

Al Franken resigned his Minnesota Senate seat way back in 2018. 

These are politicians whose careers came to an abrupt halt because of their treatment of women. Harassment. Abuse. Unwanted attention. The underlying reason it seems to me is that if you are willing to torment people that make up more than half of the population, then you probably shouldn't have a job that serves any people. 

Another feature that all those former politicians have in common is their party: They are all Democrats. Following in the grand tradition of Gary Hart, these are men who have yet to figure out boundaries. Fidelity. What the word "no" means. Consider the other Democratic stalwarts such as Bill Clinton, JFK and FDR. These were men hoisted high on the totem pole only to have sullied their own legacy with infidelity and less than, shall we say, "presidential behavior." 

Or maybe this mistreatment of women and the sanctity of marriage is just part of the package when you find yourself in a position that allows a certain measure of power over others. To be fair, a certain number of Republicans have also been shown the door as a consequence for their behavior.

But this guy who calls women reporters "Piggy," and seems to have endless fascinconation with the physical attributes of the women who are unfortunate enough to find themselves drawn into his orbit, seems to have no such limits placed on his conduct. He is a rapist, certified as such by the Supreme Court. A Supreme Court that I feel that I should point out has its share of misogynistic behavior in its record. Clarence and Brett, I'm looking directly at you. 

What I'm suggesting here is that party affiliation or the number of zeroes in your bank account should not be the litmus for whether or not a person should be allowed to hold any office. 

Anywhere. 

Corroboration

 Evidence. It is the stuff that Perry Mason would get to somewhere around the forty-five minute mark out of fifty-two. Perry wasn't alone in this. Most TV detectives or attorneys would eventually get around to presenting some sort of physical proof of just exactly how a crime was committed. As I understand it, this is kind of a bedrock element of our justice system. We even have a fancy Latin term for this: Habeas corpus.

One of the most notorious moments in terms of American Justice and the use of evidence was when Orenthal James Simpson was asked to try on a pair of gloves found at the scene of his wife's murder. One of his attorneys, Johnny Cochran exhorted the jury, along with the multitudes of those watching at home, "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit." 

The glove, in a moment of dramatic revelation, did not fit and it was soon thereafter that Mister Simpson walked out of the courtroom a free man. Which, depending on how you see this process working, is how things should have wrapped up. 

We now live on a planet where surveillance by video is the norm. Very few portions of the globe do not have an eye on us all, making it difficult if not impossible not to leave some kind of trace behind for Columbo or Perry Mason or Johnny Cochran to pick up and utilize to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that crime that was committed had, in actual fact been committed.

We are currently being told, by a convicted felon, that the damage done to the Reflecting Pool was done by "vandals," including a former Olympic athlete who has been arrested for this crime. Of course there is "video evidence," if the blurry indistinct images of figures putting their hands in the goo that has replaced the water in the "newly renovated" pool can be considered "evidence" of anything other than bad judgement on the part of all the blurry indistinct figures seen putting their hands into the mess made by the convicted felon's attempt at giving his campaign donor a no-bid contract to Make America Green Again.

Of course, this is also the guy who exhorted his followers on January 6, 2021 to march up to the Capitol and "fight like hell" to overturn the results of an election he felt he shouldn't have lost. How do I know this? I've seen the evidence. 

I wonder what Perry Mason could do with that? 

Not Right Now

I got the news from my cousin from Kansas while he was out visiting after doing a cross-country road rally. He told me that he had stopped reading this blog because "of all that Trump stuff." After a few minutes he went on to echo many of the sentiments expressed here on a frequent basis, including the mess made in the Reflecting Pool and the illegal war in Iran. 

He didn't disagree with what I was saying. He had simply grown tired of reading my frequent if not daily rehash of events and how I didn't seem able to move off the point. That moved the conversation further down the path that had him confiding his surprise that there are "still folks who are behind this guy one hundred percent."

It was apparent to me that he was feeling the same or similar distress with the way the country was moving. I listened and considered, not for the first time, my own voice crying out in the wilderness. What was I doing aside from the obvious preaching to the choir? How could I not see myself as sitting on the other end of the seesaw that was still "behind this guy one hundred percent?"

I told him that I appreciated his commentary on my commentary, but I also politely suggested that without some sort of equal and opposite reaction from the other side, the outrage might continue and then I would never be able to get back to writing more frequently about kittens and funny things kids say. 

It continues to be a battle, and it pains me that I feel I have to give my hundred percent to poking holes in the directives coming out of Washington. 

Can't I think of anything else to talk about? 

Not right now. 

World Wide

 I consider myself a sports fan. Not unreasonable, but fixated on the outcome of certain games being played by grown men and women for which I have a "rooting interest." I don't gamble on the final score or any of the other mathematical or statistical threads that could become a concern. I do participate in a "friendly" fantasy football league whose prize at the end of the season is primarily bragging rights for the following year. 

This being said, I know that I do not appreciate sports, or rather a sport, like the football fans across the globe who are currently immersed in the contest we now embrace as The World Cup. Far from the somewhat ridiculous exclusivity of Major League Baseball's "World Series" which is comprised entirely of teams from North America, FIFA brings together a truly international group of competitors. This event is, according to John Oliver, the way that Americans learn about geography. Each one of these teams has its own fan base which instantly reveals my "passion" for certain franchises to be a passing fancy. 

I learned just how tepid my own concerns were last weekend when my wife began to notice the sounds emenating from up and down the houses and apartment buildings on our street. Mexico and England were locked in a tense match, and each shot on goal or offsides was met with a roar coming from inside and out of neighbors' homes. As we walked up the street for dinner, we took notice of how still the rest of the neighborhood was outside of these periodic eruptions. It made me think of Super Bowl Sundays when "everyone" was settled onto their couches, staring at the uniquely American "football" spectacle.

Or at least the commercials. 

I was reminded of the 1970s. Back when we in the United States began to tense and surrender for the adoption of the metric system. It was right about this time that initial rumblings began to occur about how we should also brace ourselves for the next big wave of international influence: Soccer. Boys and girls began to organize teams that allowed them to move the ball only with their feet. 

How could this be? 

Most of us are still waiting for this domination to usurp our use of the term "football." But as I made my way down my street in Oakland, I was reminded of the multiculture in which I teach. On any given day there is a basket ball game, or some American football being tossed around, but by far the most regular attraction on our playground is the soccer pitch. Boys and girls from five to twelve are all kicking and screaming to their hearts' content, fully aware of the rules of the game if not the subtle techniques of the players they have grown up idolizing. Seeing this throng of children playing a game with such fervor reminds me of the melting pot in which I live. It makes me understand the World just a little better. 

Monuments

 Fifteen years ago, my family made a trip to Washington DC. It was kind of a make good on the trip that my son didn't go on when he was in middle school. We spent a few days getting to know our nation's capital, seeing the sights and soaking up the patriotism. We took public transit into the city from our friends' house where we were staying and when we came up into the Union Station stop, I took in the view that Jefferson Smith beheld upon his arrival in the 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. My wife and I sometimes talk about my "Jimmy Stewart moments," those times when I am feeling especially earnest. This was one of those times. 

We were there ostensibly to fill in the void in my son's patriotism, but we ended up filling my red, white and blue bucket as well. Standing outside the gates of the White House, with the mild certainty that across that lawn inside was the man to whom I gave my vote twice to be President of the United States, gave me a satisfaction that I can barely describe. It felt right. 

As we meandered around the museums and monuments, I took full measure of the sights I was witnessing. I had made a similar trip when I was much younger with my brothers and parents, but my post-Watergate cynicism kept me from fully appreciating the grandeur I was seeing. After two terms of hope and change, I was ready to pay tribute. 

The following day, we set ourselves the task of the Smithsonian Institute, but first I declared that we needed to stop by the National Archives to see what all the fuss was about this Declaration of Independence. My wife and son and I spent the early afternoon of July 4 that year standing in line for just a quick glimpse. As the day wore on, we found ourselves walking out onto the National Mall just about dusk. We sat down on the grass and proceeded to watch a fireworks display like I can't recall ever seeing before or since, with the Washington Monument in the background. 

Which made me feel all the worse for those tourists who found themselves in a similar place this past weekend but came away with a much different experience. The magic that swept up Jimmy Stewart and yours truly wasn't available this Fourth of July, partly because of climate change and perhaps the gods anger with the way things are these days. 

I hope for all of our sakes that it is not gone forever. 

Lessons Learned

 Where did we go wrong? Did we, as a nation, take the metaphorical "left toin at Albequokie" that Bugs Bunny warned us about? Certainly my fellow travellers would agree with Bugs that this ain't Pismo Beach. No, I think we left the track toward the American Dream some time ago. 

Obviously any country that would elect a slumlord to the highest office in the land, we may have needed course correction, and certainly repeating that mistake eight years later suggests that we haven't learned our lesson. 

But I do not believe that the United States was completely well long before the election of 2016. Some might argue that somewhere around the time we began to embrace the currency issued by our Treasury more than the values printed on it. "Out of Many, One." "In God We Trust." Back in 1987, Oliver Stone directed a movie that offhandedly reminded us that "greed is good." I don't believe that Oliver was making an overt statement in Wall Street, but rather reminding us of the perils that awaited us all if we forgot the working class and embraced corporations as our gods. He certainly wouldn't be the first artist who unwittingly created a snuff film for those who viewed it more as an instructional video rather than the fable for which it was intended. 

Of course if we had already been lost in the woods, this story never would have been necessary. I can just skip past Watergate, since Richard Nixon assured us so very many times that he was not a crook. Instead, I will place the blame squarely at the feet of Lizzie Maggie. If that name doesn't ring a bell, you may have played her game: Monopoly. You know, where you buy up real estate and try to run all your friends and family out of business as you attempt to own everything. It even includes what was the precursor to the pardon, the Get Out Of Jail Free card. Not unlike Oliver Stone, Ms. Maggie was attempting, as she developed her game, to create something that would give us all a lesson in greed. 

All these years later, it would seem that the lesson she intended is not the one we learned. I don't know about you, but I can remember plenty of times when the kid down the street was caught cheating while we were playing Monopoly. 

I'm just a little surprised that he didn't go into politics. 

Mad Dogs And Englishmen

 If you're anything like me, and if you're not why the heck aren't you, then you probably spent a chunk of the past weekend trying to determine how you were going to spend your hard-earned fun coupons celebrating our nation's birthday. I was intrigued as ever by the nightly flurries of aerial shells with showers of sparks and loud reports in our neighborhood. The ones that began in mid-June and will continue to disrupt our quiet nights for the next couple of weeks are a mystery to me. 

It was a few years back when my wife and I traveled north to Oregon to celebrate the anticipation of our anniversary right around the Fourth of July. Crossing the border into a state where fireworks of all sorts were legal and available for sale, we pulled over to one of the many tents pitched by the side of the road and began inspecting all the possible ways that gunpowder and sulfur could be ignited and dispersed into the sky. Eventually we settled on one particular product with the intriguing sobriquet, Mad Dog. We also purchased a few odds and ends like sparklers and smoke bombs and glow worms with the notion that we might find someplace safe and sane that we could share those less than explosive ordnance. When our friendly fireworks salesperson tallied up our purchases, they came to just under fifty dollars, with the Mad Dog being by far the big ticket item. 

We tucked these items in with our luggage and continued on up to Portland. 

We never did find a time or place to make a lot of noise and smoke on our visit north. We retuned to Oakland with our contraband without having fired a single shot in anger or fun. It simply never seemed like the right time or place. 

New Years Eve came and went, and though we were sorely tempted to carry out our barrage, neither my wife nor I could get up the gumption to set fire to the sky. Not when we had so much help from all those houses up and down the streets surrounding us. 

Somewhere in there we decided to give up our Mad Dog. We handed it over to our son, who we figured would find a clever or subversive use for pyrotechnics. 

I remembered all those trips I used to make with my brother when we were young, across the border to Wyoming where they sold beer on Sundays and fireworks were the best reason to make that drive. On one of those excursions, I purchased enough pop bottle rockets that I was able to parse them out over the next several years, bringing some of them along with me when I moved to California. 

They're gone now, much to the chagrin of my son to whom I taught the simple rule: Light and run away. These days there isn't much good running will do. We are surrounded each summer for three to four weeks by things that go boom in the night. 

How can they afford it? 

Born At Or Near The USA

 The convicted felon and adjudicated rapist masquerading as a leader of the Free World is considering a ban on visitors to our country who happen to be pregnant. This was the somewhat ridiculous and draconian response he arrived at after the Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution was, in fact, already settled business. Section 1 reads: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Looking for the gray area? This is "birthright citizenship," and this is the reason for the Second Trumpreich to keep pregnant tourists from visiting the land of the free and home of the brave. Apparently we are currently experiencing a freedom and bravery deficit and we just don't want to run out. "Birth tourism" is a rare enough occurrence, but since we are having a particular challenge staying free and brave here in the moderately United States, 

A couple years ago, the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist wanted us all to be afraid of the murderers and rapists being unleashed on our shores by other countries. 

Very afraid. 

Now we are being asked to be afraid of pregnant women who happen to find themselves within our borders, especially when they're obviously here simply to land a sponge here that will soak up all those glorious resources we offer all our rightly born American babies. Stephen "Nosferatu" Miller made his terror be known to Jesse "Holdyer" Watters on Faux News: "So, you have mothers that come in fully pregnant, have a baby, go home, and that baby gets Medicaid and that baby gets welfare and that baby gets cash assistance. They'll leave the baby with a cousin, a relative, whatever, then send welfare checks back home. You can support a whole family in the third world."

Since "birth tourism" is already illegal, the fright described by the undead minion of the convicted felon is already covered. And since it has been the policy of the Second Trumpreich to kick children and families off any and all kinds of assistance programs anyway, this just serves as one more egregious effort to make us all believe that the United States doesn't have enough money to take care of its children. 

Which may go a long way toward explaining how we ended up bombing that girls school in Iran.